There are several pillars regarding safety that demonstrate excellence in a contractor. Three main staples youâll find in every contractor that portrays safety excellence is an EMR of less than one, a Total Recordable Incidence Rate (TRIR) of less than one, and a Days Away, Restrictions and Transfers (DART) rate of less than 0.1. A contractor absolutely canât rely on luck when it comes to its safety record. The achievement of a safety record conducive to the requirements of most petrochemical companies is obtained by implementing a comprehensive safety management system such as OSHA VPP.
VPPs recognize and promote effective safety and health program management. Companies in the VPP have strong safety and health programs, implemented and managed in cooperation with OSHA. Sites approved for VPPâs three programs â âStar,â âMeritâ and âDemonstrationâ â meet and maintain rigorous standards.
A good, effectively managed worker safety and health program can be a big factor in reducing work-related injuries and illnesses. OSHAâs âSafety and Health Program Management Guidelinesâ identifies four general elements critical to a successful safety and health management program, including management leadership and employee involvement, an analysis of worksite hazards, use of hazard prevention and control initiatives, and safety and health training.
Management leadership
Leadership is making organizational safety expectations clear, supporting safety financially, being present when key safety issues are decided, being positive and supportive of safety efforts, and creating and insisting on a caring company culture. It is the single overwhelming factor in achieving an effective safety and health program. Without it, accidents abound. In order to accomplish anything in the workplace, supervision must have the tools of the trade available, including the assignment of responsibility for a function or activity, the authority to do the job and accountability to senior management.
The last action recommended under management leadership is an annual review of program operations to evaluate success. A comprehensive program audit is needed to evaluate safety and health management and ensure protection against worksite hazards. The audit determines if the policies and procedures are implemented as planned and if objectives are met.
Worksite analysis
Hazard analysis can get pretty sophisticated and go into great detail. For many processes and operations, a solid look at the plans by a variety of affected people may be sufficient. The easiest and most effective method is using the step-by-step process of the job hazard analysis (JHA) or job safety analysis (JSA). The hazard analysis process has a number of checkpoints. We start with the expert survey, perform change analysis and have routine examinations of jobs, processes and phases of work. The last formal checkpoint is the inspection to catch hazards missed at the other stages. While an alert and competent workforce is the constant âreal-timeâ protection against accident and injury, inspections provide the final clear and concentrated focus on potential problems.
But letâs be realistic. To gather a handful of people and tell them to walk the floors of the facility and âinspectâ is virtually useless. You should make sure the objectives of the activity are known and clear to everyone involved. If you put your checklists together, avoid excessive detail, vague criteria, and forms that try to impress or overwhelm. Once your people are skilled inspectors, they wonât need checklists and probably wonât let hazards sit until the inspection team comes by.
Here are some basic criteria for the report:
⢠Have a form stating who, what, when, why and where.
⢠Make the form or report easy to follow and use. Managers and those taking action on the report should be able to see at a glance the status of their organization.
⢠Include recommendations so those taking corrective action have some guidance. There is no need for an inspection to focus only on problems. If the team finds excellent conditions and positive safety behaviors, write it up! This is an opportunity for positive reinforcement.
⢠Rank findings and show the status of corrections so results can be tracked, plotted and understood. For example, Evergreen Industrial Servicesâ sample form shows some coding at the bottom, which tells at a glance how serious the findings are and the status of corrective action.
⢠Be sure all items are corrected!
Incident investigation
All too often in the typical organization, youâll hear people griping about doing another accident investigation. âWhat a pain! Get it done any way you can!â Strange, isnât it? If your safety and health program works and you get to zero accidents, you donât have to do investigations. Until you get there, investigations open a great window into the culture of the organization and give you a clear look into why things are going wrong.
First, letâs be clear on the purpose of accident investigations. This is a positive process! Our intent is prevention and correction. It is never blame, which is counter- productive. Next, letâs consider what accidents we need to investigate. As a general rule, you should investigate all injuries; accidents with potential for injury, property damage or product damage; near-miss situations so you can consider the root causes; and every injury or illness entered on the OSHA injury and illness log. How the investigation gets conducted is a matter of company policy and assigned responsibility.
Hazard prevention, control
Hazard prevention starts with provisions for competent medical occupations in the clinic that will conduct medical surveillance like hearing evaluations, respirator fit tests and pulmonary function tests. Develop a good relationship with an occupational physician who has a full understanding of OSHA recordkeeping. If your clinic or hospital is not close by, you should develop a specific emergency and medical plan for that specific job and ensure you communicate the plan to everyone on the job.
Hazard assessments
A critical step in developing a comprehensive safety and health program is to identify physical and health hazards in the workplace â a hazard assessment. Potential hazards may be physical or health-related, and a comprehensive hazard assessment should identify hazards in both categories. The hazard assessment should begin with a walkthrough survey of the facility to create a list of potential hazards, and an industrial hygiene monitoring strategy should be developed along with similar exposure work groups. The suitability of existing PPE should be included in the reassessment.
Documentation of the hazard assessment is required through a written certification that includes the following information:
⢠Identification of the workplace evaluated.
⢠Name of the person conducting the assessment.
⢠Date of the assessment.
⢠Identification of the document certifying completion of the hazard assessment.
Proper PPE
All PPE clothing and equipment should be of safe design and construction and should be maintained in a clean and reliable fashion. OSHA requires many categories of PPE meet standards developed by the American National Standards Institute.
Employers should make sure each employee demonstrates an understanding of PPE training as well as the ability to properly wear and use PPE before they are allowed to perform work requiring it. The employer must document the training of each employee required to wear or use PPE by preparing a certification containing the name of each employee trained, the date of training and a clear identification of the subject of the certification.
Health, safety training
The first step in the training process is a basic one: Determine if training can solve the problem. Whenever employees are not performing their jobs properly, it is often assumed training will bring them up to standard. However, it is possible other actions (such as hazard abatement or the implementation of engineering controls) would enable employees to perform their jobs properly.
Ideally, safety and health training should be provided before problems or accidents occur. This training would cover both general safety and health rules and work procedures â and would be repeated if an accident or near-miss incident occurs. Whatever its purpose, training is most effective when designed in relation to the goals of the employerâs total safety and health program.
It is my sincere belief the combination of all these tools will help your company achieve and maintain safety excellence. Ensuring we all go home to our loved ones every day in the same condition we arrived is our ultimate achievement.
Bill Shaw holds a bachelorâs degree in management and received the designation of Certified Safety and Health Official (CSHO) from the Texas A&M Engineering Extension and the OSHA Training Institute. He serves as an OSHA special government employee and has conducted numerous VPP audits for OSHA. He also serves on the Houston Area Safety Councilâs board of directors.
For more information, contact Bill Shaw at (281) 478-5800 or email bshaw@evergreenes.com.
